What Microsoft’s Discontinuing of the Kin and SideKick Should Teach You

The Wall Street Journal reported that Microsoft will discontinue it’s Kin phones (made for consumers and not businesses).
The article read The Redmond, Wash., company said it won’t sell the existing Kin phones in Europe this fall as planned and that it will work with its sales partner, Verizon Wireless, to sell remaining U.S. inventories.
As I’ve said before, I do not think growing businesses can afford to be early adopters. No one could predict that that Kin would be discontinued. For all we knew it could have taken off and been the next iPhone.
However, my suggestion is to be VERY careful, and purchase with your “eyes wide open”. Be careful when investing in new technology or technology that is newly created by companies who are new to creating it.
This does not mean to NEVER buy new technology, but this means that before rolling the technology out to all your employees or making it a core part of your business, wait several months to give the company creating the new product lots of time to work out all the bugs and to give customers time to vent their complaints or problems, so you can really know if it is a product for you.
Because a product is discontinued does not mean it will not work. And most companies will support a discontinued product for a reasonable time after it’s been discontinued.
However, my advice is to still be very careful about investing in new technology. Try it out. Test it. See how you like it. But don’t make major investments in the technology until you thoroughly investigate how it works in the real world and the company’s overall commitment to it.T-Mobile is also discontinuing the Side Kick